kebechet Report post Posted November 18, 2009 Happy birthday, BPAL! Holy shit: we're seven years old! The past seven years have been some of the best years of my life, and I owe much of that to the family that has grown around Black Phoenix. Thank you to my brother and partner, Brian, who spearheads Production, and without whom Black Phoenix would not exist. I love you! Thank you to my husband, Teddy o'the Trading Post. Your love and support keeps me afloat, and you inspire me like no other. I love you! Thank you, Kathy, my right hand woman. You keep me sane, and you find my head for me when its not screwed on properly, and truly, I don't know what I'd do without you. I love you! Thank you, Jacquelynn, our general manager, whose gentle Virgo whip cracking ensures that the wheels of our strange machine run smoothly. I love you! Thank you to Bill, the patron saint of customer service. Your beautiful heart shines through your emails. I love you! Thank you to our production staff, who form the backbone of this company. You enable us to share our creations with the world, and I am eternally grateful. I love you! Thank you to the mods and administrators of bpal.org for being the best friends anyone could ask for. You take on a difficult, often thankless, job with love and dedication beyond the call of duty. Thank you for being my proofreaders, my sanity check, and my foundation. You are amazing women, and I love you! Thank you to Sue and Del at Dark Delicacies for giving BPAL a home away from home, for always being there for us, and for being wonderful grandparents to the Little Demoness. I love you! (And so does Lilith!) Thank you to the artists that work with us, Jennifer Williamson, Alicia Dabney, Julie Dillon, Madame Talbot, Quique Alcatena, Jennifer Rodgers, and Sarah Coleman, for bringing our scents to life! I love you! Thank you to Lisa and the crew at Whole Foods in Roswell, GA for giving their all to Dirty South will call! You are amazing people, and I love you! Thank you to the Mütter Museum, Le Pink, Whole Foods, Urban Outfitters, Wildilocks, and Healthy Living for giving our products a home in your stores! Thank you to the bloggers, journalists, magazines, and other media outlets that have shown interest in Black Phoenix, and have taken the time to do writeups on our shops! Thank you for your time and energy; it means the world to us! Thank you to Neil Gaiman for affecting me like no other author, for being such a supportive friend, and for allowing me the pleasure of interpreting your beautiful, witty, soul-moving stories through scent. I love you! Thank you to Amanda Palmer, Terry Pratchett, Terry Moore, Mike and Christine Mignola, George Perez, Peter David, Molly Crabapple, Mark Waid, Ross Ritchie, Jill Thompson, Brian Pulido, and Gris Grimly for giving us such all such joy through the beauty of your art, and for giving Black Phoenix the opportunity to interpret your work. Thank you to the kind people at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Hero Initiative. You help those who cannot help themselves, and you are an inspiration to us all. Thank you to all our clients. Thank you for being there for us, and for each other, throughout all these years. Thank you for sharing our happiness and holding our hands through times of grief, loss, and transition. Thank you for celebrating pivotal points in our lives with us… the challenges of our rites of passage and difficult times of change… beautiful moments… weddings and births… and comforting us in times of sorrow. Thank you for wit, your kind hearts, and your friendship. Without the amazing, beautiful people we have met through and because of Black Phoenix, this would all be ashes. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share all that I love, all that I fear, and all I desire with all of you. I love you! Now, before I start weeping like a loon, let's get on with the new stuffs… The BPAL 7th Anniversary scents are live! ++ THE ALCHEMICAL PHOENIXES GOLD PHOENIX La Lumiere sortant des Tenebres. The noblest of the alchemical metals, representing the splendor of the Sun. It is the essence of pure consciousness and represents the divine, creative force present in all spirit and all matter. It is the symbol of the goal of perfection, and is capable of radiating all the colors of dawn and dusk while still retaining its unblemished purity. Three ambers representing common gold, astral gold, and elementary gold, with verbena, angelica, and heliotrope that has been purified by frankincense and Gum Arabic. SILVER PHOENIX Lustrous, pliable, delicate, and malleable, silver is as mysterious and radiant as the moon. Silver requires darkness in order to react, and receives light passively. Opalescent orris shimmering through a blend of mallow, moonflower, wild pear, iris, starwort, juniper, and mugwort. COPPER PHOENIX Copper's lustrous, rose-tinted Venusian energy inspires creativity and assists in balancing spiritual polarities. It can be utilized as a literal mirror, and a mirror reflecting the beauty of the soul. Rose-infused dark amber, with sweet orange, honey, cardamom, patchouli, apricot, pink pepper, and red sandalwood. IRON PHOENIX Blood and fire: a magnetic metal that burns brightly and easily. Iron illustrates the metabolic process and the need to control primal, brutal urges without quelling the fire of passion. Dragon's blood and dark, dense metal, black pepper, clove, red ginger, basil, and myrrh. TIN PHOENIX A malleable, pale metal with a flexible, crystalline structure that speaks out with a thunderous voice when bent or shaken. It is representative of the breath of life and the storminess of the spirit. Pale metals, crackling ozone, hyssop, white mint, tonka, and lemongrass. QUICKSILVER PHOENIX Mercury exists in three states of matter, just as Hermes, its patron, was the one deity that could move freely through the three classical worlds. In one of the alchemical processes, nitric acid, also called aqua fortis, is combined with Mercury, which then separates into a bed of red crystals and a cloud of red vapor. This experiment symbolizes the soul's transcendence over the polarities of mercy and severity, heaven and earth, light and darkness, life and death. Mercury is capable of forming complex compounds and amalgamating with elements that normally will not bind with others. Combined with phosphor and charged with electricity, it produces light. Cinnabar and silvery liquid droplets of mastic, white sandalwood, elemi, and lavender. LEAD PHOENIX Solid, heavy, and resistant to corrosion, lead is the first and oldest of the Seven Metals. It is the metal of ammunition and tombs, radiation shields and solder. Though it represents limitations and boundaries, it also transcends them when combined with other elements to create Philosophical Mercury. A dark and lusterless scent that contains the potential for limitless spiritual radiance: tobacco absolute, hemlock, plum, cypress, styrax, olibanum, and wild lettuce. And this year's resurrected scents… ++ 2009 RESURRECTED BLENDS HOD Glory and Majesty, Kokab, God's Judgement. SPOOKY A maddeningly festive blend of warm, buttery rum, cocoa, coconut, vanilla and a jolt of peppermint. It's a sweet, decadent, slightly silly scent, reminiscent of rum-laced holiday cookies. Much is also new at Black Phoenix Trading Post! Several new claw polishes are live at the 'Post, inspired by BPAL's Bordello, Croquet, Malediction, Sed Non Satiata, and two Phoenix Steamworks-inspired colors: Smokestack and Robotic Scarab. A tee commemorating BPAL's annual Resurrection of the Smells is live! Artwork by Jennifer Williamson! And last, but not least, Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples locket is live! Based on illustrations by Julie Dillon for the Snow, Glass, Apples chapbook produced by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. We are tying up one remaining loose end with the Inquisition, and it will be live later this week! Please mark it on your calendars: Dark Delicacies will be hosting the final Black Phoenix trunk show of 2009 on November 29, 2009 from 12pm til 3pm! Details to come! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
